


Brothers

by Zetal (Rodinia)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adam the Forgettable, Child Abuse, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Winchester Communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8016910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/pseuds/Zetal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has issues with his family.  He and his dad can't get along at all, and he and his brother... well.  That one's all Sam's fault.  So he runs away and meets a nurse with a big heart who offers him somewhere to go for a few days.  She's got a kid who needs looking after while she's at work, and her regular babysitter's sick.</p>
<p>When Sam learns who the kid is, it shakes his world.</p>
<p>Underage warning: Sam is sixteen in the first part.  They don't actually begin a relationship at the time, but there's a kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brothers

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Good Ole Boys](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5957962) by [posingasme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme). 



> Inspired by a moment in PosingAsMe's story "The Good Ole Boys" when Sam recognizes the name Adam from John's drunken ramblings, and Dean thinks Sam knew about their half-brother and hadn't told him.

If Sam had a place in mind when he first left home, maybe he wouldn’t have ended up here. Making plans, even in his head, had seemed too risky. His dad was just that good. Even Dean was good enough to track him. Minnesota wasn’t terrible, and as far as he knew, there’d be no reason for Dean or Dad to choose Minnesota over any other state. Kansas, South Dakota... or somewhere in the Southwest, Sam loved the southwest and would choose to head that way if he weren’t trying to hide.

It’s not that he minded Minnesota, it’s just that in September, it was a little chilly at night. Sam had spent most of the night in a park when he found himself shaken awake. “Hey, are you all right?” the woman asked.

Sam considered her carefully. She was a nice-looking woman wearing scrubs, and given that there was a hospital just down the street, probably a nurse, maybe a doctor even. That would explain why she was out and about this time of night. “I’m fine, ma’am. But thanks.”

“Do you need a place to stay?” she pressed. “I’m Kate Milligan, and I’m a nurse. If you need a place for a couple of days, well, my son’s usual babysitter just came down with the flu and won’t be able to work for a few days. He’s eight, and I’d be happy to give you a bed and food in exchange for looking after him…”

Once again, Sam gave it serious consideration. John Winchester would definitely have no reason to look for his son working as a babysitter in some random town in Minnesota, and eight was old enough that the kid wouldn’t need constant supervision. On the other hand, it seemed a bit suspicious to him that this woman happened to have a sick babysitter just when he needed a job, and was nice enough to let him stay at her house… but that was Dad’s thinking, his paranoia. He’d check out the sickness, of course, but… “Thanks, Mrs. Milligan, that’s really nice of you.”

 

The sitter’s illness checked out, and Adam seemed like a reasonably normal kid. For the first couple of days, everything went smoothly – Sam looked after Adam until Ms. Milligan woke up, then went to the library or out exploring until it was time for her to go to work. On the third day, though, he found Adam looking at a picture of himself at a baseball game. “Hey, when was that?”

“Last year, for my birthday,” Adam said. “Pirates vs. Twins. My dad took me for my birthday, he’s done that every year since I was four.”

“Yeah? You going again this year?” Sam asked.

Adam shrugged. “Every year, he says he expects to be back the next year but that something could happen and he might not make it, so don’t get my hopes up too much. He’s stopped even trying to tell me he’ll be around for Christmas or Mom’s birthday. I don’t know what’s so important that he might miss the one time a year he is here, but…”

Sam couldn’t help the sympathy he felt for the kid. He knew what it was like to know that your own father had things more important than his kids. “Do you have a picture of your dad?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, pulling out a little photo album. He flipped a few pages. “Here, that’s Dad.”

Sam stared in disbelief. “You’re sure?”

“Uh, yeah, I think I know my father when I see him,” Adam scoffed.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean… of course you know your dad,” Sam said. He just couldn’t believe what he was seeing – John Winchester at the Brewers’ ball park, grinning, with his arm around Adam and looking for all the world like a normal dad taking his kid to a baseball game for his birthday. Adam was grinning too, probably about five years old in this picture, holding out a baseball and a glove. “When’s your birthday?”

“September 29th,” Adam said. “It’s getting pretty close!”

“Yeah, it is,” Sam said, his heart sinking. It was the 26th. There was no good outcome if he stayed. Either John would show up, and there’d be a showdown, and the kid’s birthday would be ruined, or John wouldn’t show up, and Sam would have to pretend he had no idea why when he knew exactly why the kid’s birthday was ruined.

He had to leave, so he started the work of trying to find Dean as soon as he could get away. His eyes swam with tears when he realized that Dean was in Minnesota. What were the chances of the Winchesters just happening to find a hunt in Minnesota when John needed to be there for another reason? So either they knew where he was, or John had come up with some excuse or other to start in Minnesota and was going to come take one son to a ballgame while the other one was missing.

Ms. Milligan met him at the door when he got back. “Sam, I just got a call from Sophie, she’s ready to come back to work. You’ve been doing a great job…”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. “Actually, that’s perfect timing. I’m sure you’ve guessed I ran away from home, well, working with Adam’s made me miss my brother enough that I think I want to go back. So if Sophie’s ready, then you don’t need me anymore and I’m not leaving you in a bad situation…”

Ms. Milligan’s smile was relieved. “Good to hear, then. Your brother won’t give you too much trouble when you go back, will he?”

“Nah, he’ll just be happy to see me,” Sam said with a lot more confidence than he felt. “Thank you so much for everything, Ms. Milligan.”

 

Sam was fairly certain Dean wouldn’t kill him. If he was lucky, Dean would stop after the first punch at least until he got some explanations. Still, it was with a great deal of trepidation that he knocked on the motel room door.

“Sammy?” Dean asked, voice roughened with whiskey and fear.

“Uh, hi, Dean. Can I come in?” Sam asked.

Dean grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him into the room, shoving him into a chair and handing him a silver knife. “Prove you’re the real thing first, then I want some goddamn answers.”

Sam took the knife, set it on the table, and went to get some salt from Dean’s bag. When he returned to the table, he picked up the knife again and cut his arm. He didn’t even flinch as he poured the salt over the cut and rubbed it in. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Sorry? Yeah, I’ll just bet, and you haven’t even had to deal with Dad yet,” Dean said.

Sam took a moment to look Dean over very carefully. They both knew all the tricks for concealing injuries, and Sam couldn’t help but notice the way Dean was moving just a little gingerly, the slightly off color around his left eye and on his neck. “Dean, I mean it. I shouldn’t have run on your watch and left you to take Dad’s wrath. I just… I didn’t think, and I’m sorry.”

“And now I get to deal with Dad’s smugness when he shows up and sure enough, you were in Minnesota,” Dean grumbled. “I told him we needed to be looking down south, Arizona or something, but he insisted that Minnesota was the place to start.”

Sam let out a snort. Yeah, he’d just bet Dad knew all about him coming to Minnesota. “Yeah, no. Dad’s good, but he’s not that good. Only reason I’m in Minnesota is because that was the first bus leaving from the station at the time I ran, and I timed it so there’d be a huge window between when you last saw me and the earliest you’d have noticed me missing. And didn’t go straight to the station, either. Spent the night here, was gonna take off for Flagstaff in the morning except that I kind of fell into something that was better than running.”

“Flagstaff, huh?” Dean said, giving Sam a skeptical look. “What’d you fall into?”

“A nurse needed a babysitter for her kid and was willing to let me sleep at her place if I’d watch him, kid was easy enough to take care of except for how much he reminded me of you,” Sam said. He laughed internally – if the kid was John Winchester’s son, no wonder he reminded Sam of his brother. “So when the normal babysitter came back, I decided to come find you.”

“You know I’m gonna make you stay here with me until Dad comes home,” Dean said.

Sam nodded. “I know.”

He was about to continue, explain the whole situation about Adam, when Dean interrupted. “So why’d you come back?”

“Told you, I missed you. And I couldn’t stay with the kid anymore, so…”

Dean looked skeptical, and somewhat pissed. “You ran away, but you came back… because you missed me. Yeah, try again, Sammy.”

“I’m serious, Dean,” Sam said. “I can’t make you believe me, I guess, but I came back because I missed you. We’re brothers, and…” Sam decided that telling Dean about Adam could wait a while. This was more important. “And I guess I never realized just how much that means to me. Even when you were off with Dad on a hunt, you were still there, you know? I could always count on a phone call to check up on me, or you leaving something where you knew I’d find it after a day or two when the freedom had worn off and I’d be missing you more than I was mad at you for leaving me. But running away… it was different, this time, and I decided I’d rather have you and put up with Dad than be free from Dad but not have you.”

“Sammy, you got no idea what being brothers means to me,” Dean said. “Don’t mean the same to you.”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” Sam said. “But that doesn’t mean it means less to me.”

“It does,” Dean said. “Just trust me on this one, it does.”

Sam blinked. “So what’s it mean to you, then? Why are you so sure it means less to me?” Dean didn’t answer. Instead, he stared at Sam for a very long time. “Dean, come on, answer me. You’re kinda starting to freak me out here…”

“You really want to know, huh?” Dean said. “Fine. You run, I’ll stall Dad, let you get good and hidden this time.”

“What’s me running got to do with…” Sam started to ask. He was cut off by Dean pulling him out of his chair and pushing him against the wall. He was not prepared at all when Dean bent his head and kissed him.

There was a hunger in it, a passion, but Dean pulled himself back before Sam could recover his wits. “There you go. Run. I’ll stall Dad. You might see if Bobby’d take you in, you know he’d never give you up to Dad, tell him whatever the hell you want to about me.”

Sam shook his head to try to clear some of the confusion. “Funny, I’d have thought after what just happened that you’d be all about me staying here.”

“No shit I want you to stay, but why the hell would you, knowing what you do now?” Dean asked. “So I’m gonna do the right thing, let you go, try to make it so you can stay gone. Stay safe from…”

“What, from you?” Sam stepped forward, getting in Dean’s personal space. “Dean, I am safe from you. Right here, right now, I am perfectly safe.”

Dean took a few steps backward. Sam followed. “What, Sam? You wanna kick my ass before you go or something?”

“No. I want you to kiss me again, now that I’m not so surprised I forget to kiss back,” Sam said. “God, Dean, why do you think I didn’t ask you to run with me?”

“Because I’d have probably told Dad you were thinking about running away,” Dean said. He looked ashamed, which made Sam chuckle.

Sam shook his head. “Because while you and I wouldn’t know normal if it came up and bit us, I do know that being jealous of all those girls you head off with is not normal. I ran from Dad. I didn’t ask you to come with me because I didn’t trust myself to keep my hands off you if you did.”

Dean backed away again. "Sam, you're too young. I shouldn't have done this. This was a mistake."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Fine. What are we waiting for? Eighteen? Still rather be here with you than out there by myself."

Sam had thought that he'd be able to wear Dean down, that eventually, Dean would give in. He was wrong. He'd meant to tell Dean about Stanford, to let him know. But when his eighteenth birthday came, and Dean was out with some girl he'd met two days before, Sam figured that whatever the hell that was two years before wasn't real. It hurt, realizing that. He suddenly realized he'd never gotten around to telling Dean about Adam. Not much point, now. What were the chances Dean ever met Adam?

 

Four years, and Dean never even tried to contact Sam. So when Dean showed up in Sam’s apartment, Sam wasn’t inclined to make things easy for him. Of course, Dean knew exactly how to get Sam to go, and then Jess and the Yellow-Eyed Demon…

Four years, Sam figured he’d gotten past it all. So when Dean didn’t show any signs of remembering, or ask why Sam hadn’t warned him, Sam didn’t bring it up. It didn’t seem to matter. He still would rather be here with Dean than out there on his own.

Then the phone rang. Some kid named Adam, claiming to be John Winchester’s son. Sam believed it. Dean didn’t. Sam couldn’t put his finger on why he was so sure, so he let Dean set up his ridiculous holy water and silver tests. But then the kid walked in.

He was ten years older, but Sam recognized him immediately. “Adam.”

Adam stopped in confusion. “Sam?”

Dean looked between the two of them. “You know him?”

Adam nodded and sat down. “He babysat me for a few days. Told me all about his big brother Dean and how awesome he was. So, look. I don’t know who the two of you are, or why you had Dad’s phone, but this isn’t funny. My mom’s missing, and Dad wasn’t much of a father, but right now, he’s better than nothing.”

“Sammy?” Dean was glaring now.

Sam sighed. “Yeah. When I ran away, when I was in Minnesota. That’s why I didn’t head for Flagstaff like I’d thought about, I had a job that Dad would never be looking for me doing. But then I found out that he was John’s son, saw a picture of him and Adam at a baseball game. Luckily his regular sitter was able to come back. Dad wasn’t in Minnesota looking for me, Dean. He was there to take Adam to a baseball game for his birthday.”

Dean's glare intensified. “Uh-huh. And you didn’t tell me about this because…?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Because we had that discussion about what it meant to you to be brothers and I kind of got a little distracted, you asshole!”

Dean blinked. “You… remember that?”

Now it was Sam's turn to glare. “You may have forgotten, but I didn't. I don’t see how I could’ve.”

“I didn’t forget! I thought you had! And then when you left for Stanford…”

“Yeah, I bet you don’t even remember her name, do you." Dean blinked in confusion. "Why would you? My birthday, and you’re…”

Adam cut in. “Guys, can you figure this out later? My mom’s still missing, and if you two are my brothers, then maybe you could help me find her and settle the personal drama later?”

Sam took a deep breath to calm himself before turning to Adam. “Of course. Tell us what you know.” Dean glared at Sam, but Sam remembered the nice nurse who’d helped him.

 

Unfortunately, it was too late. Kate and Adam were both dead, taken by the ghouls who were now pretending to be them. As Adam burned, Dean came to stand with Sam. “We have an argument to finish.”

Sam sighed. “Dean, I meant to tell you. I did. But then you kissed me, and all thoughts of Adam just flew out of my head. Didn’t even recognize the name when he called, really, although I knew it sounded familiar. It wasn’t until I saw him that I remembered.”

“What was that crack about remembering her name?”

“You sure made it sound like once I was old enough, you wanted me. So I kind of thought my birthday, you’d be with me. Instead you’re off with some girl you probably don’t even remember now. That’s why I didn’t tell you I was running to Stanford. I was so pissed at you.”

“I did want you! That’s why I went off with Sandy – and yes, I remember her name. You were still in school, dude. And not long after you ran off, Dad got hold of me and told me I didn’t need to be drawing attention to us by flirting with kids still in school. Eighteen or not, it was still a bad idea, and there were plenty of other girls out there I could get. So I figured, okay, it’s only a few more weeks, you’d be busy studying for finals anyway, no harm in it. But then, every time I so much as touched you, you were snapping my head off and telling me to leave you alone… guess I figured you’d changed your mind. Can you blame me?”

“You could’ve told me the plan had changed. I was snapping your head off and telling you to leave me alone because…” Sam cut himself off and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” Dean looked at the fire. “Wish I’d known about him. I could’ve… we could’ve warned him. Protected him.” He turned and headed back to the car.

 

Once again, Sam had pretty much forgotten Adam until Castiel showed up with the sleeping kid. Adam was uncooperative, more than happy to go along with Michael’s apocalyptic showdown if it meant he could see his mom again. But it was nice to see him again.

Leaving him behind, Cas probably dead… Sam felt terrible about being happy that Dean had the fight back in him. “What happened? I saw your eyes, man. You were totally rocking the yes back there.”

“Damnedest thing. I look at you, and all I can think is ‘This stupid son of a bitch brought me here.’ And I… I guess I couldn’t let you down. Again.”

“Well, you didn’t." Sam held up a finger. "You almost did, but you didn’t.”

“And I owe you an apology.”

Dean getting his head back in the game was all Sam needed. “No, man. You don’t.”

“Just let me say this. Sammy, I’ve been your big brother as long as I remember. And sometimes, I forget that you grew up too. You’re not some snot-nosed kid that I’ve gotta keep on the straight and narrow. You found faith in me, despite everything. Least I can do is return the favor. And…” Dean bit his lip. “Look, if that ship’s sailed, if I missed the chance, that’s fine. But seeing Adam again, reminded me what keeps happening when we run into him. Last year…”

Sam laughed. “Last year I was too high on demon blood and you were too freaked out by how I was acting. Adam knew, this time around. Apparently Zachariah told him. I didn’t say anything to you because… honestly, given your lack of faith, I didn’t see much point. I got real good at shoving it down, burying it. But it’s still there.”

Dean grinned at him. “Awesome. It’ll take a couple days to get back to Bobby’s, so let me know when you’re ready to pull over and finally do something about this. Keeping in mind the stolen truck, of course.”

"Of course."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are awesome!


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